Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, or any of its associated characters!
Summary: Sasuke is waiting for Naruto to come with him. Naruto is waiting for Sasuke to ask. How many times do they have to let each other go? SNS, Canonverse. Written for My One, My Only zine!
A/N: Here's the fic that I wrote for the my one, my only zine a little while ago :) I hope you like it! It was super intimidating & amazing to be part of such a talented crew!
This fic has a companion piece of art - done by Ninjaduelist! You'll see it up on my tumblr, or you can go to the ao3 version of this fic for a link to it :)
Irreverisble
Sasuke's back again today.
It's a hot, sweltering summer day in Konoha, and Sasuke's back again. It's about the only thing that could distract Naruto from the sun, beating down on the both of them—his blood is hot in his veins, he's panting and drenched and almost trembling on his feet—
And he's never felt better.
"Yield," Sasuke tells him, and Naruto's grin widens.
"In your dreams."
Sasuke smiles. It's not even there for a second. Naruto barely gets to take it in before they're a blur again. And there's no time to focus on Sasuke's eyes or his hands or his mouth or his tongue, Naruto's too busy parrying the blows, dodging the kicks, twisting around and summoning two clones to help him—
"Your turn."
Sasuke's eyes narrow.
"You cheated," he says, and not even Naruto's clones are sorry.
"Oops."
He's exhausted. He's bruised and drenched in sweat and heat and Sasuke is pinned to a tree between the three of them—three blades to his throat, and he couldn't care less.
He's just catching his breath. Naruto knows it better than anyone.
The clones are gone a minute later, but Naruto's broken the deal—jutsus are fair game now, and Sasuke is coming at him with the full force of someone who hadn't seen him in months. Naruto gets caught in the face and hits the ground with a bang, and Sasuke's fist balls up his jacket.
He's abandoned the Hokage cloak today. Good thing, too.
Naruto doesn't even finish the breath before Sasuke's hand is on his. Most would pin the wrists, but not Sasuke—Sasuke only needs one hand. Sasuke only needs to dare Naruto to try to put them together. A single twitch of his fingers, and Sasuke will match their hands together into something that'll destroy whatever Naruto had in mind—
"You're distracted," Sasuke tells him, and it's a threat. It's a promise. It's not fair at all, because he doesn't know how Sasuke expects to be in front of him without smashing his focus to pieces.
Sasuke pulls back and lets go, and Naruto's clothes slide along with the sweat. Sasuke's hand is forgiving this time, when he reaches out—kind and brutal in the easy way it lets Naruto take it.
He's rusty. His muscles are shaking. Too much time in an office. Too much time away from where he should be.
Sasuke's eyes narrow, and Naruto looks away.
"You're distracted," he says again, and Naruto huffs out a breath.
"Yeah," he sighs, stretching out his neck. He rolls his head from side to side, as if that'll help with anything. He's gonna hurt like hell tomorrow.
…
He's gonna hurt like hell.
"You're leaving tonight, right?" he asks, and he doesn't turn back. He doesn't even know why he's asking. He knows the answer.
"Yes."
Naruto nods, and the ache's started already. Muscle pains. Memory pains. Naruto's mouth is thick with everything he wants to say.
"You, um…" He coughs past it. "Where are you headed?"
"I don't know," Sasuke answers, and Naruto looks over at him. He's grown into himself now. His hair's longer. His eyes are calmer. They look at Naruto with something that makes him—
Makes it really hard to talk. Damn it.
Naruto clears his throat again.
"Yeah," he laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, I guess you don't really need to…"
He breathes out.
"Fuck, it's hot. I need water."
He can't even think straight. He can't even string two words together. He looks up at Sasuke and Sasuke—
Sasuke looks away.
"Come on, then," he says, and there's something stiff in his shoulders, "moron."
Naruto follows two steps behind him. Reading the tension in Sasuke's back. Reading the sweat and skin and language he's studied for years—
Sasuke looks back at him, and it's a reprimand. Naruto's going too slow. Spending too much time in his own head. Sasuke will be gone in a second, and Naruto should be here, at his side, but he's…
Naruto breathes out and looks down. He catches up to Sasuke, and their shoulders bump together.
Sasuke will be gone soon.
Sasuke will be gone soon.
Sasuke will be—
"Didn't you have a meeting in two minutes?" Sasuke asks, and Naruto's completely forgotten.
"I cancelled it," he lies, and Sasuke looks back at him. "...Shikamaru will know to cancel it."
Sasuke snorts, but doesn't argue, and Naruto wonders if he knows. He wonders if he knows, the way everybody else does—that the way Naruto is around Sasuke isn't…right. Isn't the same. Isn't just a friendship. Isn't just an understanding. They're a scale and they're a pendulum, they're the tide and if Naruto shouts at the edge of a cliff then Sasuke is the echo that answers—and when Sasuke is gone, Naruto is alone. Naruto is surrounded by a world that loves him, but he's alone. He's off-balance and stumbling, looking for something he thought would be there when he brought Sasuke home, but here Sasuke is, and everything's exactly the same, and Naruto still doesn't know—
Is he allowed to love Sasuke yet?
Is he allowed?
Naruto doesn't know.
The next time they meet, it's been too long again. Naruto greets him with a smile and a let-go breath, and Sasuke feels the sigh in his throat. He's hovered around where he knew Naruto could find him for the better part of the last month. He doesn't travel far anymore. He can't bring himself to. Whatever anguished instinct had beckoned him to search the outside world for meaning and truth had fizzled away, leaving him with nothing but what he already knew.
They find a village—a small town, a small inn. Sasuke runs out of clothes, but Naruto's have exploded all over their room. He finds himself counting the shirts. Counting the pants. Naruto's brought too many, surely. Too many for himself.
Sasuke's options are theft or laundry, and he's yet to leave the room alone. He's sure he'll come back to it empty. He's sure Naruto will stop him, before he goes, to tell him goodbye.
…
Orange doesn't suit him. Sasuke pulls at his sleeves and looks ridiculous, but the shirt is on him now, and it's soft. It's familiar. It smells different from his own clothes.
Sasuke stands in the bedroom, and doesn't think he'll give it back.
He can hear the tap in the kitchen, though, and it pulls him to look at who has it running for so long. It's the sound of soap and water—dishes and cutlery, and Sasuke turns the corner with the joke on his lips.
Naruto, cleaning. By choice. Unheard of.
Naruto takes one look at him and drops the plate he was holding. Sasuke fights the smile as he clatters around the mess, trying to pick it up again—
"Alright, there?" he asks, because Naruto's blowing the room up in all the noise.
"Yeah, I—yeah, I—yeah," he says, and he's finally managed to grab it again. He's staring at Sasuke's stolen shirt in bursts of ocean blue, and Sasuke reaches over to turn the tap off. Naruto stutters out another apology, and Sasuke doesn't know if the shirt's the thing that's broken him, or this feeling—this mundane nothing in the room that isn't even theirs. This addicting peace. It'll shatter, he knows, and he wonders if the countdown's in Naruto's head, too—and what number he's on—
"Cleaning's broken you?" Sasuke deadpans, because hiding the storm in his head is as easy as breathing. "Is that all it's taken?"
"I—you—" Naruto huffs out a breath, "shut up."
Sasuke steps forward and leans in.
Naruto doesn't even breathe.
"No," he says, and he's so close. Naruto lets him get so close. Sasuke finds himself taking advantage of it more and more, pushing boundaries he thought were rigid only to find Naruto never enforced them at all—Sasuke wants to know when he will, wants to find what will make him—
The love is there, like the air in the room. Breathed in. Never acknowledged. They've yet to say it out loud, but Naruto looks at him, and he knows.
Sasuke knows, too.
Acting on it would be too much. Would break something. Sasuke's resolve, maybe. Saying goodbye is already barely a step back from impossible, and Sasuke feels himself inching closer again—
He tears himself away and opens the fridge, as if this was always his intention. At least he can mourn all that was once there.
"I thought we bought enough," he mutters. "You're going through it faster than fields can grow."
"Asshole," Naruto tells him. "It's a chakra thing. I can't help it."
Sasuke rolls his eyes, but he knows. Naruto's appetite has calmed since they were children, but Naruto's energy demands are far different than the rest of them. Still, it does mean…
"I'll buy more," he says, and it's a question. It's a test. Naruto looks up at him, but Sasuke's staring at the fridge. Sasuke won't look back. Sasuke's seen the fist and he's ready for the hit—
"Not too much," Naruto says, and there it is. "I have to go soon."
For a moment, Sasuke doesn't answer. Doesn't move, doesn't breathe. And when he does, it's only to turn away and wave a hand. He's lost his voice. He's lost his appetite.
He didn't know what he'd expected. He'd seen where this ship was headed as soon as he'd stepped on it—filled with holes, and now Sasuke stands here, surprised that his shoes are wet.
"I mean, I—" Naruto says, and Sasuke closes the fridge. "I don't have—you're sick of me by now, right?"
He laughs it off. He always laughs it off.
Something in Sasuke…switches.
"No," Sasuke tells him, and Naruto's smile falters.
"What?" he asks, and the plates are forgotten in the sink.
"No," Sasuke says again.
He's tired. He's so tired. The desire to live like this isn't quelling. He can't keep it down. He can't—
"What do you mean, 'no'?" Naruto says, and he's bewildered.
"No," Sasuke drawls out, as if that will explain anything, "I'm not sick of you."
Naruto's mouth opens and closes. He looks back at Sasuke as if expecting him to laugh, to joke, to shove him away and tell him he's an idiot, but Sasuke gives him nothing.
"You'll get sick of me, though," Naruto says, and it's an out. He's smiling again. Ready to fall back into comfortable banter, but Sasuke's hair is standing on its edge, and it's too late.
"No."
Naruto doesn't understand.
"If you want to go, I won't stop you," Sasuke says, turning to the small, open window. It's growing cold in here, again. "But don't act as if it's for my benefit."
"But it is for—" Naruto starts, and Sasuke spins around. "You—you wanted to do this alone. That's what you—didn't you?"
"No," Sasuke says again, and Naruto—
"Say 'no' one more time—"
"No."
"Fuck you!"
Naruto grabs a fistful of his own shirt, and Sasuke meets his breath with his own. The smile comes of its own volition—as it always does, when Naruto is worked up into something stupid in front of him.
"What the hell are you trying to—" Naruto says, and he can't even finish the question. "Sasuke—"
"When have I ever asked you to leave?" Sasuke asks him, and something in Naruto's eyes tightens.
"When have you ever asked me to come with you?" he whispers back, and it's raw. Painful. A wound left exposed—
"I didn't think it needed to be said," Sasuke answers, and Naruto lets out a broken laugh.
"It does, asshole," he insists. "It—"
He looks down and lets go, as if only then realizing how close they are.
Sasuke catches him by the wrist before he can step away.
"Naruto," he says, and Naruto is frozen.
"You really—" he starts, and his eyes dart down to the way Sasuke's holding onto him, "you really want me to—"
"Yes."
Naruto breathes out.
"...Okay," he says, and his eyes are wide. "Okay. I'll start—I'll have to—okay."
He lets out a laugh, and it's breathless. It's happy. It's so, so beautiful—
Naruto rocks back and forth, and ends up closer than he was. Sasuke lets go if only to let him.
"Does that," he says, and his eyes have never been more blue, "does that mean we can—"
"Yes."
Sasuke moves forward and Naruto's hand is in his hair. The kiss is rushed and clumsy and laughing, Naruto doesn't know what he's doing and Sasuke knows even less, but it's perfect, and it's theirs, and it's irreversible.
Naruto pulls back, but Sasuke doesn't let go.
He doesn't think he ever will again.
A/N: There it is! I hope this tides you by until the next chapter of two is a crowd comes! I think you can tell I wrote this one as I was writing that one, haha.
Thank you friends!
Until next time,
- Kinomi